


Who's Been Wearing Miranda's Clothes?

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A meditation on life after trauma, BDSM, Canonical Character Death, Crossdressing, Disguised as a simple story about shitty roommates, F/F, F/M, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:57:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7961566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a little crooked house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who's Been Wearing Miranda's Clothes?

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from a line in the David Bowie song, The Heart's Filthy Lesson. The quote in the summary is from a Mother Goose nursery rhyme.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

They're one big happy family. Butch has become like one of those sea creatures that moves into another animal's shell after it dies. When Oswald got sent to Arkham, Butch moved into his house. It was Falcone's old place, so there was that sense keeping it in the family. Like how Oswald's club used to be the Fish Bone. Hold onto things, because you'll inevitably need them. Pass them on to someone close to you when you don't. It's the same with people. Butch comes over to Oswald's, and Barbara's there, a drink in her hand, sprawled on a couch in a negligee, like a character from Valley Of the Dolls. She looks up from her magazine. “Butch,” she says, smiling, her nose wrinkling. She still looks delicate, but now, it's like an icepick looks delicate. Butch holds his fake hand in his real one, trying not to look like he's covering his balls.  
“You live here, now?” he asks.  
Before she can answer, Oswald comes into the room, also in his pajamas. “It was better this way,” Oswald says, and Butch waits for Oswald to touch Barbara, to show that they belong to each other now, but he doesn't go near her.  
“More convenient,” Barbara adds, flipping pages, “Anyway, since I was thrown out of my last home, I didn't really have anyplace else to go,” now showing all of her teeth, “It was really too kind of Oswald to offer.”  
“Nonsense, Barbara,” he says, pouring himself a drink, “I couldn't leave you out in cold, after how much you've helped me.”  
Barbara makes a bashful gesture.  
“That got me thinking,” Oswald says, leaning against the table where the woman's head rests on its pillar. Oswald's never said who she was, and Butch isn't going to ask. “You should live here, too. It's not like we don't have the room.”  
Barbara claps her hands together. “Like a slumber party. How fun.”  
“I suppose you'll want Tabitha to move in, too, after she's been discharged from the hospital,” Oswald says, rolling his eyes, “Barbara's won me over in that respect, too. Of course Tabitha can live here.”  
Oswald's right about one thing: it is cold out there. The dead are walking the streets. The living have abandoned Butch. For all Butch knows, Victor's still looking for him. You don't hear Victor coming unless he wants you to. Victor could be so quiet. He could go for hours without talking, without even breathing audibly. Sometimes, Butch would start talking just to remind himself that he was able.  
“Yeah. Sure,” Butch says.  
“How fun,” Barbara repeats. She grins at Oswald. Oswald grins back.  
When Tabitha gets out of the hospital, they bring her home.  
“Love the décor,” she says flatly when she sees the head on the table. Barbara smiles at Oswald, but Butch knows that Tabitha was being sarcastic.  
That night, Barbara leads Tabitha to Barbara's bedroom. As Butch watches them- he can't imagine what his face looks like, but Barbara reproaches: “She needs her rest, Butch. She's not going to get much of that with a big man all over her all night.”  
Tabitha shrugs. “Doctor's orders.”  
Butch wants to say that it's not like that. “Yeah, you're right,” he says instead, “You take good care of her.”  
“Oh, I will,” Barbara says.  
Later, Butch slips down the hallway and into the closet of the room next to Barbara's. He rests his head against the wall. More than once, he thinks he hears something, but sometimes, now, the silence in his head rattles with sharp cries that don't hit the air. He falls asleep there, and awakes as the room is graying with the dawn. He gets up, goes to the hallway, approaches Barbara's door. He turns around, and goes back to his room.  
Seamlessly, one night slips into the next, until Tabitha's sharing Barbara's room all the time.  
“Honey, you understand,” Tabitha says, and he does, though she hasn't yet told him what he understands, “It's different with a woman than with a man. You know that.”  
He can't answer, so he lets her go.  
“Oh, Tabitha, don't be like that,” Barbara says, “There must be something we can do with him. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Butch? That's what men like, isn't it? You want to see what you're missing by not being a girl.”  
He can't answer, so he lets them do what they want. Tabitha cuts the shirt from his back, hits him with that thing she's got with the leather thongs. She called it a cat, once. Her blows are softer than he remembers. She still needs to get her strength back. He smiles.  
Then, a particularly hard one. He turns his head. He almost congratulates her on the force. When he looks, though, it's Barbara, topless and leering, rolling her wrist before hitting him again. He can feel himself start to bleed. He makes himself relax. It always hurts more if you don't relax. Sometimes, you want it to hurt. Sometimes, it's better to just get it over with. They tie him up, face down, so he can't see, but only hear them. Laughing, shrieking as they chase each other around. He thinks that it'll hurt when he hears them fucking. That never comes, though. One of them throws the door open, and they run, whooping down the hall, and disappear.  
He's falling asleep when he hears someone enter.  
“Honey, would you mind untying me?” he asks, “I'm losing circulation.”  
“With pleasure,” Oswald says, “Though, you don't have to call me 'honey', Butch.”  
“I thought you were Tabitha,” he mutters, rubbing his wrists.  
Oswald frowns. “There's no call for that.”  
Butch frowns right back at him.  
It's then that Barbara and Tabitha reappear. Barbara's still in her skirt, but Tabitha's nude, except for the bandages on her midsection.  
“I was just saying,” Barbara says, “Wouldn't it be sweet if Butch and Oswald amused each other while you're busy with me?”  
Tabitha smiles, and pinches Barbara's side. “You are bad.”  
“I am bad,” Barbara says, and kisses Tabitha like no one else is in the room.  
Oswald rolls his eyes and leaves. Butch stays where he is, sitting on the edge of the bed as Barbara and Tabitha throw themselves onto it. He goes to the bathroom and looks at his wounds.

Barbara and Tabitha open up a nightclub together. It's on the site of Oswald's old place. He just gives it to Barbara. Not long after, she and Tabitha move out.  
“It's been fun,” Tabitha says, Butch thinks, not without affection, and touches his face. Barbara links her arm with Tabitha's, and off they go. Over her shoulder, Barbara waves at Butch. “Toodle-loo,” she says.  
The house is quiet. Apart from when Oswald gets pissed off about something that may or may not have really happened, starts shouting and everyone and no one. Smashes anything in his path, with his cane or with his hands. One day, he throws the lady's head to the ground. The mess it makes is indescribable. “Clean that up,” Oswald mutters, sounding almost embarrassed, as he leaves the room. Butch sweeps it up, bags it and the broom, incinerates them. He scrubs the floor and the table with bleach. The smell makes him remember days that weren't so long ago, but might as well have been another life. His body aches.  
Apart from when Oswald wakes up screaming. Has this always happened, and Butch just didn't notice it before? Or has Oswald gotten worse since Barbara left? Maybe that's what it was all about with her. Two loons singing to each other in the dark. Butch can't just let him scream. You don't do that. You don't just leave someone alone like that, to scream their guts out. So alone that it's like the whole world is dead.  
He shakes Oswald out of it. The first time, Oswald sinks a knife into Butch's fake hand before either of them knows what's happening. “I'll get you another one,” Oswald says, and rolls over. After that, Butch wakes Oswald by saying his name before touching him. He has to keep doing it, sounding like a foghorn in the dead of night. Oswald can even sleep through whatever fucked-up shit he's seeing in his dreams. It takes so long to bring him back.  
Oswald starts awake. His eyes are wet. “You want a drink?” Butch asks, “Are there some pills you take?”  
“No pills,” Oswald spits, then, “Get me a drink. Make me a cup of tea. With milk, and a lot of sugar, and rum.”  
“Tea, milk, a lot of sugar, and rum.” There's something about doing things like this for somebody that makes you feel more solid. Part of it's because this is how they learn to trust you. Because you know them, truly know them, but still want to be around them. You know a person most not when you hurt them, but when you take care of them, after they've been hurt. Someone once told Butch that.

Another cuckoo floats in on the breeze.  
“Butch, this is Edward,” Oswald says, like he's showing Butch something that he made.  
“Nice to meet you,” Butch says.  
“What has hands, but can't clap?” Edward asks.  
“I don't know. What?”  
Edward frowns. “That was an easy one. A clock.”  
Oswald has Butch take Edward's suitcase to Oswald's room. It feels like a point is being made. If Butch didn't get it the first time, it's made again when he walks in on them. Edward's not wearing those fucking Coke bottle glasses, so he probably doesn't see Butch. Oswald does, though. Butch waits for him to speak. But Oswald says nothing. He does something that makes Edward, riding Oswald, moan, change his rhythm slightly. Oswald has his hands on Edward, but he's looking at Butch. Oswald does the same thing again, and Edward's head falls back. Now, Butch can't move. He watches Edward fuck himself to orgasm, come on Oswald's belly.  
“I want you to go down on me,” Oswald says.  
“Okay,” Edward gasps, his hips still moving, “Okay. I just- can you hand me my glasses, please?”  
Butch turns and goes back the way he came. He's forgotten why he was looking for Oswald.

Some days, Butch wants to blow Oswald's brains out, cut Edward's throat, torch the house, and just fucking leave town.  
Some days, Butch wants to walk out the door, into Gotham, find Fish, beg her to kill him.  
Some days, he wants it to be Tabitha who does it.  
Some days, it could even be Barbara.  
Some days, Butch wants Victor to find him, take him back to that fucking basement, where Butch had no obligations but to piss, shit, throw up, and scream. He wants to let Victor take care of him again.  
Some days, it's actually all right. Edward, at least, is scrupulously neat, and doesn't let Oswald get away with leaving overflowing ashtrays all over the house. He'll go away, for weeks at a time. Come back looking full of himself, giggling when he thinks Butch isn't looking. He and Oswald spend most of their time in Oswald's room. Butch can hear them through the walls.  
The best days are those when Oswald's such a fucking mess that Butch has to think about him, to stop him from doing something to himself. On those days, Oswald fills up the house, fills up Butch's head, so there's no room for Butch in there. It's like Butch doesn't exist, at all.  
Today, Oswald's walking like a ghost. Between his room and the liquor cabinet. He's in his robe, the sash pulled tight across his middle; the too-long pajama pants.  
“Go easy there, boss.” Butch thinks of that guy who used to work for Oswald, who Oswald inherited from Maroni. What was that guy's name? He used to call Oswald “boss”. Maybe saying it, now, will make Oswald remember those days. If Oswald remembers, so can Butch.  
“Don't tell me what to do,” Oswald pouts, and finishes his drink.  
“Yeah, sure. Do whatever you want.”  
“No. Butch. Don't say that.”  
“Okay.”  
“Can you take me back to my room?”  
“Sure.”  
Oswald's leaning on Butch. Who knows where his cane is.  
“Do you miss her?” Oswald asks.  
“Who's that, then?”  
Oswald doesn't answer. “I miss him,” Oswald says.  
“Miss who?”  
Oswald doesn't answer, then, either.  
Then, belatedly: “Myself.”  
Butch wants to ask how he could miss himself. But that's a stupid fucking question. It's such a stupid fucking question, and everything Oswald's said is fucking stupid. Butch could choke Oswald. Wrap his hands around Oswald's throat. Put out the fucking light. But that wouldn't take the words out of the air. He couldn't cram them back into Oswald's throat, choke him that way. If he can't do that, there's no point.  
“Yeah. I get that.”  
“That's right,” Oswald looks up at him, “You do.”  
He drops Oswald on his bed. “Do you want to sleep?”  
“No.” Oswald's holding Butch's hand. His real one.  
It's like being dead. Finding yourself at the end of something that should have destroyed you, but didn't. It doesn't matter that you survived; the damage is too extensive. Your life cut from you like a limb. Who the fuck are you, anymore, after that? You're nobody. You don't exist anymore. So, nothing that you do can touch the world. It doesn't matter one fucking bit.  
The robe comes off. Underneath, Oswald's wearing something silky, the color of gunmetal. One strap slips down his shoulder. It still smells faintly of girl. He didn't get this from Barbara, and he definitely didn't get it from Tabitha. It could have come from the dead woman Oswald decapitated. Shit- it could even be Gertrud's. Butch twists the strap around his finger. He pulls Oswald up into his lap. Oswald lets out a fat plume of breath, wriggles, trying to accommodate his bad leg. Butch inhales the scent rising from Oswald's throat, liquor and cigarette and sweat and a woman's perfume. Oswald trembles.  
Shaking like a leaf in autumn.  
Where did that come from?  
“Leave it on, or take it off?”  
“Leave it on,” Oswald breathes.  
The rest comes off. He lets Oswald rub against him, holds his hips. Oswald twists, twitches; comes in Butch's hand. His real one. Oswald makes the same sounds he did when Fish beat him. So recently that some of the bruises have yet to fully fade. Archipelagos of pale gray on the white sea of Oswald's back and shoulder. Then, all Butch hears is Oswald's breathing, deep and heavy. Filling Butch's head.  
Soon, there will be no room for anything else.


End file.
